Every day worth a post

Paharpur is one of the main sights in Bangladesh, the ruins of what was once a buddhist temple. You have seen one of those in Comilla already, but this is the biggest one.

Even though it was supposed to be a 4-5 hour drive, because we happened to go on the same day, what the Indian prime-minister was visiting Bangladesh, the National monument (the one I showed before as well) to be precise, which is in the same direction, it took us 12 hours. It was bad. Very bad.

We got to enjoy a lot of bush art though when we got there.

Kinds get to learn the “picture with the bush” skill when they are very small.

I am trying hard too

The ruins are cool

People are manually cutting off the grass with little knives.

The light at the ruins was absolutely gorgeous, but still iPhone made everybody look different!

We are performing

The layer on top in new, put there to protect the left overs from further destruction

Guess whom I met there?!

Views

More goats

More bush-pictures

The area where Paharpur is situated, Rajshahi district, is famous for its mangoes. Therefore here is the biggest part of our dinner — mangoes and lychees.

Ever since I came here I wanted to try henna. One day the bride (and now a wife) from the wedding I showed you before did a great job making both of my hands beautiful with mehndi (what the locals call it)

It took about 20 minutes per hand for her, but then it takes a while to dry.

Henna stays longer on the areas, where the skin in thicker, so it was gone very fast on the outside part of the hands, but on the palms you can still see a bit even after almost 3 weeks.

In my tailor’s backyard there are two cages with moyna. These birds are amazing. They can reproduce almost whatever you tell them and in general the range of the sounds they can make it very impressive. And they are very pretty as well!

Like I mentioned before, I stayed at a beautiful house with a very hospitable family.

They even had they own little temple and every mornings the mother would make a pray, and for the evening pray the priest would come over.

On the way to one of the palaces we had a typical Kolkata snack — jhaal muri, which looks like puffed rice with some spices, but in fact has about 20 ingredients. I like Indian cuisine

The Marble Palace was recommended by many, so I went to check it out with some members of the family I stayed with. It is free to visit it, but one should first get a permission from Indian tourism agency. If you want to avoid the hassle, you can just give some cash to the guys by the entrance (you will need to tip them at the end of your visit anyways).

There is not much special inside if you have been to other palaces/museums. The difference is that all the treasures they have are kept in the non-ac conditions which makes everything alter faster.

And again, no pictures were allowed, but I hate this rule.

The family I stayed with is supporting a school for slum kids. After the classes of the main school the slum kinds come in and have their own. They are provided with the uniform and everything else needed. It is a private school, but for the slum kids it is of course free. I was invited to visit the school and it was a very intresting experience.

The school is huge. This is just one side. In total there are about 8000 pupils (if I remember it correctly).

Every day children have a different routine. I didn’t understand if the performance we saw was specially for us or it was a regular thing, but it was impressive.

Firstly, there are many kind and some af them are as young as 4 years old. In the beginning they did some playing, after sang a national anthem and some other song and afterwards they did some yoga! 4 year old kids! Yoga!

In the school we had a snack and walked around a bit

The schedule of one of the classes (not for slum kids, they have a different program)

On the way to the airport I managed to take a picture of what you can spot on many streets in Kolkata — people bathing on the streets.

The airport building is quite new, but a bit deserted. You can see planes’ houses though!

Second day in Kolkata started with some cookies (after great breakfast ;)). Unfortunately, as it usually happens to me in this part of the world (so far), sweets look great but don’t really taste like it…

Need a job? There are quite a few in Saudi Arabia

Indian children are running to school

Goats in India and veeeery big. And like hanging out in the middle of the streets as well

The main tourist attraction of that day was the Mother’s House, meaning the Mother Teresa’s house. Not much there, just many people (mostly white) feeling extatic around her grave.

Like many white people.

A lot.

Wondering around is usually the best part, so he is that Canadian guy in the middle of Kolkata

Hand-pulled rickshaws are still working in Kolkata, and it is just so weird.

Need to get your nails done? Anybody?

London’s tower bridge on a rickshaw? Easy

Buddy

That was surprising

Just a funny restaurant sign

On one of the main streets I saw McDonalds. Only got to take this picture and was told that I am not allowed to take any pictures of the counter. What is this no-pictures-desease in India?

After that I took a metro to one of the temples. Again no pictures as you can imagine (stupid!!), but here is a token